African Affairs, 107/429, 515–539
C
doi: 10.1093/afraf/adn057
The Author [2008]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal African Society. All rights reserved
Advance Access Publication 17 September 2008
MERCENARIES OF DEMOCRACY:
THE ‘POLITRICKS’ OF REMOBILIZED
COMBATANTS IN THE 2007 GENERAL
ELECTIONS, SIERRA LEONE
MAYA M. CHRISTENSEN AND MATS UTAS
ABSTRACT
The 2007 general elections in Sierra Leone marked a decisive moment in
the country’s post-war recovery. In this article we show how political parties strategically remobilized ex-combatants into ‘security squads’ in order
both to protect themselves and to mobilize votes. We look at the tactical
and strategic motives behind ex-combatants’ choice to join the political
campaigning and the alternatives (such as ‘watermelon politics’), and we
also examine the deep distrust between politicians and ex-combatants. Focusing on politics as the domestication of violence, we shed light on the
continuation of pre-war and war-time mobilization of youth into politics
and demonstrate how electoral moments can legitimize violence. In hindsight, the 2007 elections strengthened the democratic process in Sierra
Leone, but this article shows on what fragile ground this success was built.
‘Wartime’ is not so different from ‘political time’.1
So-so politricks in their heads . . . but when will we rise?2
‘YOU KNOW MY BROTHER; HE HAS GOT TWO SMALL TRUCKS. He is making
good business. I am his elder and what do I have? If we win this election
I must get something out of it.’3 So says an ex-combatant in his early
Maya Christensen ([email protected]) is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen. Mats Utas [[email protected]]
is a researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute and the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters,
History and Antiquities. Both have conducted long-term fieldwork in Freetown among the
ex-combatants who came to be remobilized during the 2007 elections. Together they covered
the election period from May to September and the previous phases of early political mobilization in 2006. The research project has been generously funded by the Swedish International
Development Cooperation Agency. We want to thank Moses Massa, Mathias Krüger, and the
journal’s anonymous reviewer for their comments on an earlier draft.
1. Achille Mbembe, ‘On politics as a form of expenditure’ in Jean Comaroff and John L.
Comaroff (eds), Law and Disorder in the PostColony (Chicago University Press, Chicago, 2006),
p. 300.
2. Sierra Leone musician Kao Denero, ‘Politricks’, on his 2004 album, King of Freetown.
3. Interview, central Freetown, 6 August 2007.
515
516
AFRICAN AFFAIRS
thirties who was remobilized as an unofficial security guard for the Sierra
Leone People’s Party (SLPP) during the 2007 general elections. He had
been asked why he joined the SLPP campaign, supporting the same politicians who jailed him and his comrades at the end of Sierra Leone’s civil
war.4 That war was caused by a combination of high-level politics and the
individual social navigation of marginalized youth; today, in the so-called
post-conflict setting, it is largely the same actors who are running and navigating the politics of democracy. Many young Sierra Leoneans call this
a game of poli-tricks and demo-crazy; popular musicians, the voice of the
street, release a seemingly endless stream of protest songs on the subject.
This article addresses the ways in which politicians strategically remobilized
ex-combatants and other marginalized youth into their campaigns and, conversely, how ex-combatants, often lacking any genuine vision of democracy,
used the democratic elections for their individual navigation. It was a game
in which the former combatants employed many of the violent techniques
they had mastered during the war, as well as a means of redirecting many
of the military and militia networks towards post-war political purposes.
Political youth
As in much of Africa, the term ‘youth’ in Sierra Leone is a political
label denoting political contestation and social position rather than biological age.5 In Spitzer and Denzer’s work on Wallace-Johnson and the West
African Youth League, for example, youth are depicted as political and revolutionary: ‘youth’ connoted social change, not least independence from the
colonial powers.6 After independence, however, ‘unruly’ youth were tamed
in many countries by ruling party youth wings, an exercise that often extended the period of ‘youth’ to fairly advanced ages.7 Meanwhile in many
parts of contemporary Africa we see, by contrast, less loyal and somewhat
4. The civil war in Sierra Leone started in 1991 and was officially declared over in 2002
(see Lansana Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa: The RUF and the destruction of Sierra Leone
(Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 2005)); David Keen, Conflict and Collusion in
Sierra Leone (James Currey, Oxford, 2005); Paul Richards, Fighting for the Rain forest: War,
youth and resources in Sierra Leone (James Currey, Oxford, 1996).
5. Catrine Christiansen, Mats Utas, and Henrik Vigh, ‘Youth (e)scapes’ in Catrine
Christiansen, Mats Utas, and Henrik Vigh (eds), Navigating Youth – Generating Adulthood:
Social becoming in an African context (Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, 2006), pp. 9–28.
6. Leo Spitzer and Denzer LaRay, ‘I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson and the West African Youth
League’, International Journal of African Historical Studies 6, 3 (1973), pp. 413–52; Leo Spitzer
and Denzer LaRay, ‘I. T. A Wallace-Johnson and the West African Youth League, part II: the
Sierra Leone period, 1938–1945’, International Journal of African Historical Studies 6, 4 (1973),
pp. 565–601.
7. See, for example, Sara Rich Dorman, ‘Past the Kalashnikov: youth, politics and the state
in Eritrea’, Edinburgh Research Archive, <http://hdl.handle.net/1842/536> (2004) accessed
21 January 2008; Norma Kriger, ‘ZANU(PF) strategies in general elections, 1980–2000:
discourse and coercion’, African Affairs 104, 414 (2005), pp. 1–34.
MERCENARIES OF DEMOCRACY
517
fluid groups of youth, predominantly men, playing key political roles, both
in wars8 and elections. In Kenya, for example, Peter Kagwanja has proposed that generational conflict and the politicization of marginalized youth
provide better ways to understand political schism and unrest than the dominant ‘ethnic’ framework.9 Similarly, in his study of the 2000 elections in
Ghana, Paul Nugent has argued that political developments in that country
show the central role of youth rather than ethnicity or regionalism.10
As is obvious in current writings on Africa, ‘youth’ is a highly contextdependent and fluid signifier. But the way we use it in this text, which
we think reflects the way it is generally used in West Africa, is as a label for
marginalized young (and not so young) people, rather than for a whole population within a certain age bracket. The potential danger of youth is thus
not dependent on bulging demographic processes, as popularly supposed,
but rather on the number of young people experiencing socio-economic
marginalization and powerlessness.
Sierra Leonean youth as pawns and navigators
In Sierra Leone, politics and violence are intimately tied together and
elections have typically been times of heightened and sometimes violent
tension.11 Urban rarray boys, today simply labelled ‘youth’, have from independence onwards been key actors of violence.12 Ibrahim Abdullah points
out that the 1967 election saw youth ‘involvement in large numbers as
thugs for the ruling party’ because ‘[t]he violent aspect of rarray boy culture
made them an electioneering asset for politicians’.13 David Rosen likewise
identifies the 1967 election as a critical moment in the involvement of
marginalized youth in political action, when the ‘SLPP made use of “action groups”, bands of teenage males dressed in white bandanas and vests
bearing the palm-tree symbols of SLPP, to intimidate voters’.14 Later, Siaka
8. Richards, Fighting for the Rain Forest; Mats Utas, Sweet Battlefields: Youth and the Liberian
Civil War (Uppsala University, PhD dissertation published in DiCA, 2003); Henrik Vigh,
Navigating Terrains of War: Youth and soldiering in Guinea-Bissau (Berghahn Books, Oxford,
2006).
9. Peter Mwangi Kagwanja, ‘ “Power to Uhuru”: youth identity and generational politics in
Kenya’s 2002 elections’, African Affairs 105, 418 (2005), pp. 51–75.
10. Paul Nugent, ‘Winners, losers and also rans: money, moral authority and voting patterns
in the Ghana 2000 election’, African Affairs 100, 400 (2001), pp. 405–28.
11. See, for example, John W. Nunley, Moving with the Face of the Devil: Art and politics in urban
West Africa (University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, 1987), pp. 209–15; David M. Rosen, Armies
of the Young: Child soldiers in war and terrorism (Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ,
2005), pp. 76–82; Michael P. Banton, West African City: A study of tribal life in Freetown (Oxford
University Press, London, 1969 (1957)), pp. 176–8.
12. Ibrahim Abdullah, ‘Youth culture and rebellion: understanding Sierra Leone’s wasted
decade’, Critical Arts 16, 2 (2002), p. 24. Rarray boy is a Krio term referring to the footloose
urban youth who manoeuvre through the hazardous sphere of informal city life.
13. Ibid., pp. 24–5.
14. Rosen, Armies of the Young, p. 77.
518
AFRICAN AFFAIRS
Stevens and his All People’s Congress (APC) formalized the engagement
of marginalized youth in this way. In his effort to bring about a one-party
state, Stevens began using youth violence to create ‘an atmosphere of anarchy and terror’.15 S. I. Koroma, who rose all the way to the vice-presidency
in 1971, depended on youth groups as his power base, particularly the popular odelay societies.16 In Freetown and in the interior of the country, APC
youth under Stevens and Koroma ‘set people on fire, burned down their
houses, shot children, paraded citizens and beat them, brought opponents
before youth-run kangaroo courts, and hacked men and women to death
with machetes’.17 Rosen reaches the important conclusion that ‘the template for the contemporary child soldier in Sierra Leone was forged under
the APC regime’.18 Marginalized youth in particular were socialized into
violent party-related practices and, further, learned that such practices offered one of the few paths towards upward mobility in a strongly hierarchical
social system. Marginalized youth were not just pawns in a political game
but also social navigators.19 The military violence that the civil war brought
about was, thus, the natural continuation of pre-war political violence. And,
as we show below, the offshoot of civil war violence in the post-war democratic election campaign is the sustained logic of political youth violence,
albeit in democratic guise.
The 2007 general elections
On 17 September 2007, the National Electoral Commission declared
that Ernest Bai Koroma of the APC had won the election with 54 percent
of the votes to SLPP candidate Solomon Berewa’s 45 percent. As the first
general election since the UN withdrew the majority of its peacekeeping
forces, it was a key event both for the nation and for international donors,
who awaited the outcome with a mixture of anxiety and hope. The anxieties
stemmed not only from Sierra Leone’s troubled political history, but also
from the fact that a range of violent incidents and serious clashes between
political party members had fuelled a sense of insecurity all over the country.
Indeed, a few days before the voting Solomon Berewa had challenged in the
Supreme Court the ability of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) to
conduct a free and fair election, while, after polling, the announcement of
Koroma’s victory coincided with the invalidation of results from 477 polling
15. Ibid., p. 77.
16. Ibid., pp. 77–8. Masked odelay societies are still today a distinct feature of Freetonian
city life. For historical sources see John Nunley, ‘The fancy and the fierce’, African Arts 14,
2 (1981), pp. 52–9; John Nunley, ‘Purity and pollution in Freetown masked performance’,
Drama Review 32, 2 (1988), pp. 102–32; Nunley, Moving with the Face of the Devil.
17. Rosen, Armies of the Young, p. 78.
18. Ibid., p. 79.
19. Christiansen, Utas, and Vigh, ‘Youth(e)scapes’; Vigh, Navigating Terrains of War.
MERCENARIES OF DEMOCRACY
519
stations (because there were more ballots than registered voters).20 Despite
this tension and the turmoil following disrupted vote counting, ballot stuffing and rigging of polling stations, the 2007 parliamentary and presidential
elections were described as ‘generally orderly and peaceful’.21 Turnout was
reported to be high, in spite of the heavy rains and the long queues at polling
stations, and there seemed to be a general consensus both among international and Sierra Leonean observers that the elections were successful and
a significant step towards democratic transition and the consolidation of
peace.
Throughout the process of campaigning that officially kicked off on 10
July 2007 and continued until the second round of voting on 8 September
2007, youth were at the centre of politics.22 The SLPP manifesto referred
to the large numbers of unemployed youth as a ‘security challenge that
must be given appropriate attention to help the country consolidate peace’,
and APC presidential candidate Ernest Bai Koroma appeared to concur,
declaring that ‘the youth problem has become chronic, with a potential for
explosion’.23 Youth came to play an important role not only in generating
problems but also in seeking solutions. Various youth groups such as ‘awareness crews’ and women’s organizations were active during the campaigning
and at the forefront in public calls for a violence-free election. ‘We want
to be part of the making of Sierra Leone,’ announced Haroun Dumbuya
(Wahid), spokesman of the UN-sponsored ‘Artists for Peace’. However,
citizens as well as observers soon came to focus on a specific youth group
that played the most significant role during the elections: the remobilized
ex-combatants.24
The remobilization of ex-combatants
In February and March 2006 a large group of former militia commanders from the two rival factions, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF)
and the West Side Boys, were released from Pademba Road prison after
almost six years behind bars.25 Since these men had been detained under
20. Mostly from SLPP strongholds in the south-east.
21. Statement by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, ‘UN chief welcomes “generally”
peaceful presidential election in Sierra Leone’, People’s Daily Online, 11 September 2007.
22. Seven candidates competed in the first round of the presidential election but no candidate
received the necessary 55 percent of the votes to win on 11 August. A second round was held
between the two top candidates Ernest Bai Koroma of APC and Solomon Berewa of SLPP
on 8 September 2007. For a broader discussion of the elections, see Alfred B. Zack-Williams
(ed.), The Quest for Sustainable Development and Peace: The 2007 Sierra Leone elections (Nordic
Africa Institute, Uppsala, 2008, Policy Dialogue No. 2).
23. ‘Sierra Leone: election campaign focuses on youth’, Reuters Alertnet, 8 August 2007.
24. ‘Sending the wrong signal election time: ex-combatants in green colours’, Standard Times
[Freetown], 2 August 2007.
25. This group forms the core of informants for this study. Though the study has also
been informed by fieldwork among various rank-and-file combatants, it is important to
520
AFRICAN AFFAIRS
the so-called ‘public emergency’ order in May 2000, and charged with
murder, conspiracy to murder, and other offences,26 their release became
an important subject of political debate. Although it was not stated openly,
it was a common belief among former political prisoners that their release
was intimately connected to their expected remobilization into politics and
their presumed loyalty to specific presidential candidates. ‘We only escape
the Big Yard [the prison] because we are needed to support this election
business,’ Victor27 stated a few days after his release in February 2006.
Joseph, a former RUF commander, expressed his fear of re-imprisonment
as a consequence of remobilizing into politics:
All eyes are on us. If we take one wrong step in this political game they [the politicians]
will lock us up straight. And this time they will not let us go. They will kill us slowly
with poison as they did to our brothers. The politicians want to use us for their own
selfish goals and that’s why they release us. But in the end, they want to see us dead
because they fear our power.28
The political mobilization of ex-combatants and ex-prisoners began to
take shape in the summer of 2006. Initially, the presidential candidates
invited the top-ranking commanders for negotiations and in both cases
the process of mobilization was conducted through chains of command
established during the war. For example, former RUF commanders stated
that during their imprisonment Ernest Bai Koroma had already informed
them that he wanted to employ them as special security forces, while other
newly released ex-combatants were heading for negotiations with politicians
just weeks after gaining their freedom.29 As Koroma’s mobilization of RUF
combatants intensified, Solomon Berewa called West Side Boys and soldiers
for meetings. Additional influential ex-combatants were released between
the first and second rounds of the 2007 general elections, strengthening the
evidence of a link. According to these ex-combatants’ former commander
emphasize that it is not representative of the positioning of all Freetown-based ex-combatants.
Furthermore, the study focused primarily on RUF combatants and West Side Boys, and their
mobilization into the two dominant parties (APC and SLPP). As reported in the media, many
Civil Defence Force (CDF) combatants joined Charles Margai of the PMDC during the election (see for instance ‘Sierra Leone: Election could turn on Kamajors war heroes/criminals’,
IRIN, 7 September 2007). This study, however, has not focused on the mobilization of CDF
combatants.
26. For an analysis of the interrelated incidents that led to the imprisonment of RUF combatants and West Side Boys, see Mats Utas and Magnus Jörgel, ‘The West Side Boys: military
navigation in the Sierra Leone Civil War’, Journal of Modern African Studies 46, 3 (2008),
pp. 487–511.
27. To protect our informants all original names have been changed.
28. Interview, central Freetown, 12 April 2006.
29. Some high-ranking ex-combatants, however, did not choose which presidential candidate
to join before they were released. Idrissa Kamara (also known as Leatherboot), an influential
ex-soldier who later on joined the RUF and the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC),
made ‘courtesy calls’ on former President Kabbah, Solomon Berewa and Ernest Bai Koroma.
As only Ernest Bai Koroma showed ‘genuine concern for his rehabilitation’, Kamara chose to
back him (interview with Leatherboot, Awareness Times [Freetown], 18 January 2008).
MERCENARIES OF DEMOCRACY
521
and protector in prison – who had by then been mobilized into the APC –
the prisoners phoned him just before their release, asking whether he would
accept their joining the ruling party. Shortly after, they were all mobilized
as part of the SLPP task force.
Though the exact motives for the mobilization of ex-combatants were not
publicly specified, ex-combatants themselves argued that lack of trust in
the police and in the military made political leaders turn to ‘ex-servicemen’
to provide security during the process of campaigning.30 Simultaneously,
former fighters argued that the politicians chose to employ them as they
were afraid of the consequences of not mobilizing them. Ibrahim, a young
West Side Boy enrolled in the SLPP task force,31 pointed out:
The politicians fear us deep in their hearts. They know they can’t mess around with
us because we are strong members of this country. They know what we are capable of
doing and they know where we are from. If we [ex-combatants] stick together we can
coup the country in a second. Just like that. That’s the main reason why they work
with us. They know what people they are up against.32
In similar terms, another SLPP task force member, Idrissa, explained:
If they [the politicians] try to avoid us now, they will not have a chance to get power.
We are more than them. They have to work with us by force. Whether they like it, or
they don’t like it. It is by force.33
Politicians’ fear of ex-combatants was deepened and complicated by rivalry between the West Side Boys and RUF themselves, who admit to
‘always hav[ing] a deep grudge for each other’.34 For example, Foday, a
former RUF commander who was employed as special security agent to
Ernest Koroma of the APC, expressed how the mobilization of the SLPP
task force (which ex-combatants generally referred to as a ‘squad’) served
to legitimize the mobilization of an APC task force:
We [the APC] never had the plan to form our own task force but for now we are left
with no choice. SLPP, they want to spoil this election, they don’t want to accept that
Ernest Koroma is our new President. So they work with these rarray boys and junkies
[referring to the West Side Boys] to create panic in the country. They want to see our
leader dead. They want to kill us all.35
30. In line with traditional political ‘thuggery’ as discussed above.
31. In this article, a ‘task force’ refers to a temporary formation of ex-combatants (and other
marginalized youth) established to secure politicians and party offices during the electoral
process. As will be elaborated and contextualized below, the task force is a complex formation
employed both to provide security and to create ‘panic’.
32. Interview, central Freetown, 3 August 2007.
33. Interview, central Freetown, 29 July 2007.
34. At the same time, it is important to point out that, prior to the election campaign,
ex-combatants with backgrounds in the different armed forces lived together. Individuals
frequently pointed out that the friction that the war had created between them was overcome
by their similar social backgrounds as well as their current social marginalization.
35. Interview, central Freetown, 13 August 2007.
522
AFRICAN AFFAIRS
As Foday’s statement indicates, the task forces did not exist for the sole
purpose of providing security for the politicians, their residences and the
party offices but also, at times, to create a general state of ‘panic’. Members of the SLPP task force echoed Foday’s claims, emphasizing that a key
motive for expanding their task force was the threat of the APC task force,
consisting mainly of former RUF combatants. It was rumoured that ‘death
lists’ targeting various task force members were circulating within both the
APC and the SLPP.36 This further fuelled the mobilization of the violent
task forces that came to dominate the political events of the election period.
At a meeting arranged by President Tejan Kabbah37 on 3 September
2007, following violent clashes between SLPP and APC task force members
in the centre of Freetown, Solomon Berewa and Ernest Bai Koroma publicly guaranteed that they would not incite ex-combatants to cause any kind
of trouble as part of the election processes. They undertook, further, not to
employ ex-combatants to provide security. Nonetheless, both presidential
candidates continued the political mobilization of former combatants, causing a renewal of violence all over the country. Though ex-combatants initially feared the consequences of political involvement, events took a radical
turn when the campaigning got under way, with hundreds of ex-combatants
being enrolled in the task forces.38
It was not only the ex-prisoners who were mobilized. When the electoral
preparations began in early 2006, ex-combatants generally were aware that
they would be drawn into the intense power struggle. Far from seeing the
elections simply as a chance to exercise their rights as citizens, they viewed
the process as an opportunity to improve their social positions and future
prospects. Only a minority of ex-combatants in urban ghettos decided to
stay out of politics during the 2007 elections.39 After their long-term militia
experiences, they were struggling (and continue to struggle) to establish
livelihoods and to manoeuvre within a strictly limited range of peacetime
socio-economic possibilities. Positioning themselves as ‘victims of peace’
because they were not able to benefit when the war was officially over,40 they
regarded the elections as ‘a last chance’ to become ‘somebody’ with social
36. These death lists are presumed to continue circulating today and many remobilized
combatants still fear that their names appear on them and that they might be targeted by one
or other of the opposing parties.
37. President of Sierra Leone from 1996 to 1997 and from 1998 to 2007.
38. Ex-combatants from Liberia and Ivory Coast were also mobilized, and several RUF
combatants based in other countries in the region came to Sierra Leone during the elections
to join the task forces.
39. Marginalized ex-combatants in the rural areas also took part in political campaigning.
Some linked up with their ‘colleagues’ in Freetown while others acted as security forces
around party offices in the provinces. Many also acted as intelligence officers, so-called ‘recce
soldiers’, providing information to their Freetown colleagues. The extent to which rural-based
ex-combatants have been mobilized has not been the subject of this study, however.
40. Maya Christensen, From Jungle to Jungle: Former fighters manoeuvring within landscapes
of instability in post-war Sierra Leone (University of Copenhagen, unpublished Masters thesis,
MERCENARIES OF DEMOCRACY
523
standing. As elaborated below, some navigated the process of campaigning
very tactically by declaring their support for various political parties, while
others were hanging around the party offices, hoping to benefit from the
politicians on a day-to-day basis.
The last chance to benefit
‘The election is our last chance to benefit’ was a common statement
by remobilized combatants, and must be understood in the context of the
Sierra Leone civil war as a ‘crisis of youth’41 extending into post-war society.
Where youth is experienced as a confining position characterized by intergenerational immobility and lack of prospects for social becoming,42 participation in the war served as a means for youths, marginalized by poverty
and injustice, to increase their social and economic possibilities.43 Many excombatants experience their present positions in post-war society as being
characterized by re-marginalization.44 Being largely unemployed, with minimal possibilities of gaining structural and social security, ex-combatants
are frustrated. Against this background, the election was regarded as an
opportunity to benefit in ways that the end of the war never offered them.
A member of the SLPP task force, Ibrahim, felt this way after being failed
by ‘big men’, whether commanders or politicians:
I am a nobody in this country, since I came from the prison after all these years of
suffering. Nobody cares about us. We are nobody. But we need a second chance and
I have my second chance now. I believe that it will be a victory this time.45
Echoing a widely shared perception of being neglected by the Sierra
Leonean state and betrayed by politicians, another SLPP task force member,
Sammy, explained:
We came from the war with nothing in our hands – and what did they do for us, these
corrupt politicians? They put us to prison! For a good six years. So that is what we get
after all these years fighting for the country and the people of Sierra Leone! Now they
start to beg us, they start to apologize, let us forget about the past and all that. . . . We
2007); Mats Utas, ‘Building a future? The reintegration and re-marginalization of youth in
Liberia’ in Paul Richards (ed.), No Peace, No War: An anthropology of contemporary armed
conflicts (James Currey, Oxford, 2005), pp. 137–54.
41. Paul Richards, ‘New war: an ethnographic approach’ in Paul Richards (ed.), No Peace,
No War, pp. 1–21; Paul Richards, ‘Rebellion in Liberia and Sierra Leone: a crisis of youth?’ in
Oliver Furley (ed.), Conflict in Africa (Tauris, London, 1995), pp. 134–70.
42. Catrine Christiansen et al. (eds), Navigating Youth.
43. Keen, Conflict and collusion in Sierra Leone; David Keen, The Economic Functions of Violence
in Civil Wars (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998); David Keen, ‘Greedy elites, dwindling
resources, alienated youth: the anatomy of protracted violence in Sierra Leone’, Internationale
Politik und Gesellschaft 2 (2003), pp. 67–94; Richards, Fighting for the Rain Forest; Utas, Sweet
Battlefields.
44. Utas, ‘Building a future?’.
45. Interview, central Freetown, 24 July 2007.
524
AFRICAN AFFAIRS
are not flattered but we accept because this is our last chance to get our benefit and
our compensation after all these years of suffering.46
The current SLPP government was responsible for their imprisonment, as
Sammy implies, and so it may seem surprising that so many ex-combatants
turned to SLPP. However, as SLPP supporters themselves argued, since
SLPP were the ones to deprive them of their freedom, they were also the
ones supposed to help the former fighters secure their future lives; the ruling
party was the only party which could help them get what they were owed.
On the other hand, APC supporters stressed that they would never link up
with politicians who had failed them. Joining the opposition was the best
way for them to benefit and, not least, a chance to get revenge.
Security
A second, central motive for mobilizing behind politicians during the
campaign derives from the very same logic that initially kept ex-combatants
away from the political scene: security. After being under constant surveillance by government officials and by the police, many ex-combatants felt
that they were left with no other option than to take part in politics and to
link up with ‘big men’ who could protect them. Wary of being seen in public
and continuously planning their movements in relation to expectations of
sudden attacks, their lives have been dominated by insecurity and prolonged
instability.47 When the campaign began, ex-combatants met up to discuss
where to position themselves and how to ensure their own security during a
period when renewed conflict seemed extremely likely. While some, in particular the rank-and-file combatants, decided not to join any specific party,
most former commanders agreed that they would have to make specific alliances if they were to be safe during the elections. Comparing the electoral
process to past experiences of war, an SLPP supporter explained:
We have to belong somewhere to survive. The war, the election . . . we see the same
grudge, and if we stand alone we don’t have any chance to make it. Our membership
card is our guarantee for security.48
In similar terms, Ibrahim stated:
Without taking part we are zero. We are just rarray boys straight from prison. We are
zero without this campaigning. . . . Security is my main purpose. That’s why I stay with
them. Only the government of today is able to provide security. They have promised
us full security. You know, they are wicked people, if you stand alone they can cut you.
If you are not careful they will put you back to prison.49
46.
47.
48.
49.
Interview, central Freetown, 3 September 2007.
Christensen, From Jungle to Jungle.
Interview, central Freetown, 28 August 2007.
Interview, central Freetown, 24 July 2007.
MERCENARIES OF DEMOCRACY
525
As Ibrahim pointed out, linking up with the former ruling party, SLPP,
created a strong sense of security amongst ex-combatants as they were no
longer targets of the government but, rather, registered supporters working to secure the government. Though APC did not offer the same degree
of protection as the ruling party, most APC supporters also referred to
security as an important motive for joining the campaigning. They emphasized that by mobilizing and by clearly positioning themselves in the
political field, they were much stronger and more secure than they would
be standing alone. Supporters of both presidential candidates argued that
registering as members of a party, and as members of a task force, provided
them with protection from within the network of task force members and
minimized their chances of imprisonment and of police harassment. For instance, many task force members found themselves in police custody during
campaigning, both as a result of violent clashes between the two parties and
because of ordinary crimes such as theft, possession of drugs, and fighting
in nightclubs.50 In most cases, party supporters were released immediately
thanks to pressure from the presidential candidates. To give an example,
Alhaji was an SLPP task force member arrested at a central Freetown bar
in the early morning hours, fighting with a prostitute over money. He was
caught with a gun, a knife and battery acid. After having spent just a few
hours at the Central Police Station, he explained that:
I am a strong member of the task force so they need me at the office. No matter what
I do, Solo B [Solomon Berewa] will not accept to see me behind bars. He needs me.
If I was alone, the police would have taken me to Pademba Road [the central prison]
but Solo B is more powerful than the police. I have full security for now. That is why
SLPP is my party. Nobody can touch me.51
Social aspects
While ex-combatants named security as their main motive for joining task
forces, social factors cannot be ignored. Though the war is over, former militia networks are still active and many ex-combatants refer to these networks
as their only family. Having lost their families in the war or fearing to return
to their home communities because of the atrocities they have committed,
they live with other ex-combatants who have shared similar experiences.
Many expressed a deep sense of loneliness and characterized their lives as
dominated by an absence of social relations. Foday, for instance, was rejected by his entire family when he decided to take up arms in the Liberian
civil war:
50. This, however, was not a new phenomenon caused by the election per se. Many excombatants surviving within an informal, and often illegal, economy were frequently arrested.
51. Interview, central Freetown, 24 August 2007.
526
AFRICAN AFFAIRS
I am abandoned by the world, I have nothing to lose in my life because I am alone. I
fought the war, I fought my whole life without benefit, and I still suffer. This election
business is the last chance to make my life. So I take up arms again to fight for my
future. It is me against the world.52
Though Foday and other ex-combatants related their fight to a sense
of being abandoned by the world, they simultaneously stressed that they
decided to join political parties as their ‘brothers’ had done the same. In
this regard, former chains of command, carried forward into the present,
played an important role in the political mobilization. On the APC side,
it was influential former RUF commanders such as Idrissa Kamara (alias
Leatherboot) who decided to accept Ernest Koroma’s offer of employment,
while on the SLPP side former West Side commander Bomblast53 linked
up with Solomon Berewa. When former commanders set out to sensitize
‘their boys’, asking them to join the campaigning, it was only a minority
who turned the offer down.54 Most ex-combatants emphasized that they
would never fail their commanders and that they were left with no choice
but to ‘follow their steps’.
During the process of campaigning, both APC and SLPP supporters
pointed to the significance of the social benefits derived from taking part
in politics; they explained that the sense of loneliness was diminished since
they started to stick closely together. Among female supporters,55 a large
majority explained that their prime motive for joining politicians’ campaigns
was to stay with their boyfriends or husbands, who would support them and
keep them safe around the party offices.
APC and SLPP had their main party offices in two separate areas in
central Freetown. Throughout the election period, there was lively activity
around the offices, with a constant crowd of supporters discussing politics
and analysing the electoral results as they came in. Both task forces had their
own ‘territories’ behind the party offices where they would sleep in small
shelters, eat, smoke, socialize and go about their day-to-day lives.56 For
female supporters, the party offices came to constitute a space of protection
where, in addition, they might receive small hand-outs of money and food.
Adama, for instance, whose boyfriend was part of the task force securing
52. Interview, central Freetown, 16 August 2007. ‘Me against the world’ is a direct quote
from Tupac Shakur. Shakur’s music was immensely popular amongst rebel and militia soldiers
(see, for example, Utas and Jörgel, ‘The West Side Boys’).
53. In both cases, the former commanders are not only influential figures within former
militia networks but also among prisoners and ex-prisoners.
54. Some ex-combatants, however, chose to adopt the position of a so-called ‘watermelon
man’. See the section on ‘watermelon politics’ below.
55. Only a limited number of female ex-combatants joined the task forces; most were not
registered members of any political party.
56. During the elections, many combatants left their residences to stay at the party offices,
where they didn’t have to pay rent and were provided with free food on a day-to-day basis.
MERCENARIES OF DEMOCRACY
527
the SLPP office, explained that she slept behind the office in order to get
protection and money:
People are watching our steps now. When we go hustling in the night, the police will
come to trouble us. . . . If we don’t belong to these boys [the SLPP securities], we have
nobody. Our men will take care of us now. When we stress too much they will give us
money to go to the cartel to smoke.57
Aminata, a former West Side soldier who also had a boyfriend at the
SLPP office, pointed out that she decided to join the campaigning for
similar reasons, to wit, the protection her boyfriend could offer her when
staying around the party office:
I am not a politician and I have left this politics business for now. But I have my
boyfriend and all my sisters and brothers [West Side boys] so I just like to mix with
them for now. We are together always.58
Money, food, and shelter
The sense of ‘togetherness’ and belonging was a key motivating factor
in the political mobilization of ex-combatants. Many ex-combatants were
without jobs or families to support them, so it was not surprising that
short-term benefits such as money and food also motivated them. Though
these benefits varied significantly, depending on whether one was a senior
commander or a junior member of the task force, most ex-combatants
considered them significant. This was especially true for SLPP supporters,
who generally received financial benefits on a much more regular basis than
APC supporters. In the SLPP task force, all registered members (even the
most junior ones) received 5,000–10,000 Leones per day (so called ‘cigarette
money’), and received basic food when they arrived at the office for their
shift.59 For SLPP supporters who didn’t register as members of the party
and therefore didn’t receive any money, simply getting shelter for the night
was a significant motive for going to the office.
Top-ranking commanders who mobilized as special security guards to the
presidential candidates or to other key political figures (such as Tom Nyuma,
retired colonel and former National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC)
commander, and Maada Bio, retired general and leader of the coup in
1996 ousting President Strasser),60 benefited significantly more than rankand-file combatants did. Though it is impossible to give a detailed account
57. Focus group discussion with women conducted in central Freetown, 30 July 2007.
58. Interview, central Freetown, 30 July 2007.
59. The SLPP task force operated three shifts per day. However, many supporters stayed
around the office beyond their official shifts, especially during the night.
60. Both of these influential men joined the SLPP during the election, were employed as
chief securities to Solomon Berewa, and mobilized their own task forces, consisting mostly
of retired NPRC and AFRC soldiers (including West Side Boys) who had worked for them
during the war. In the Sierra Leonean press, it was rumoured that Maada Bio would overthrow
528
AFRICAN AFFAIRS
of immediate benefits, a few common characteristics emerge. First, highranking commanders working for key political figures were provided with
mobile phones and other communication facilities.61 Second, the majority
had access to jeeps when campaigning in the provinces. In terms of direct
financial benefits, commanders were paid relatively large amounts in dollars
from time to time, for them to distribute between their junior supporters.
It was obvious that most mobilized combatants were much better-off than
they had been before the campaigning started.62
Future prospects
For hundreds of ex-combatants who decided to remobilize, their future
expectations proved to be the most significant motivating factor. With a
few exceptions, all informants in this study emphasized that, although direct immediate benefits did provide them with some room to manoeuvre,
it was their future prospects that primarily motivated their participation.
When deciding whether to join politicians’ campaigns, it was the promise
of jobs, further education and other long-term benefits that had the most
powerful appeal. At initial meetings, both presidential candidates promised
ex-combatants that they would give them work after the election. Ernest Bai
Koroma specifically promised to continue to employ his personal ‘securities’ after the election and, in addition, to help them support their families.
Solomon Berewa made more general promises to many of his supporters.
In this regard, ex-servicemen (former Sierra Leone Army (SLA) soldiers)
were promised the opportunity to go back into the military, and former
militia soldiers (in particular, the West Side Boys) were promised different
types of jobs, such as state security and business-related work, and many
were also promised the possibility of furthering their education. Combatants were also promised access to control over diamond areas and other
natural resources.
For some supporters, the idea of what would be given to them after the
election remained vague. Saliue, for instance, explained:
the new APC government if APC won the 2007 election. However, shortly after APC came to
power, both Maada Bio and Tom Nyuma went to Ernest Koroma in order to negotiate new
positions.
61. Whilst these communication devices were provided so that commanders could access
information fast and, overall, to provide security for their leaders, they were also used for
personal communication with friends, families, and so on.
62. For instance, many suddenly bought new residences and clothes, and got involved with
new girlfriends. Among low-ranking task force members, however, much of the money handed
out was used to buy crack cocaine and other drugs. Though several combatants had ended
their drug abuse whilst in prison, they started to take drugs again on a regular basis during the
elections (see also Mats Utas, ‘Watermelon politics in Sierra Leone: hope amidst vote buying
and remobilized militias’, African Renaissance 4, 3–4 (2007), pp. 62–6.
MERCENARIES OF DEMOCRACY
529
It is not so much for the money [that I decided to join the SLPP]. The money is
too small for now. You see the way we live. We eat small rice; we sleep on the empty
ground. It is just like animal life. It is because if the SLPP comes to power, I will have
job. That’s why I am with the SLPP. For me to leave my house and sleep on the floor,
these guys will know what to do for us. I believe that they will do something for us. It
is out of our effort.63
Like Saliue, many other low-ranking task force ‘securities’ simply assumed that SLPP would ‘do something’ for them after the election and this
motivated them to mobilize. (This is often how casual labour deals are brokered: you work and then ‘they’ decide your salary.) On the other hand, the
ex-combatants who occupied better positions had high expectations about
future benefits. Many anticipated the opportunity to go overseas to study
or to work (merely a distant hope, in some cases) while others expected an
influential position in one of the government ministries. One of the SLPP
task force members explained:
I am not a small boy. I have power. I have influence. SLPP, they encourage us to help
them attain power. They say that we can work as state security or whatever we want. . . .
But for me, I have my own purpose. Strictly for myself, I have high ambitions. My
main objective is to leave the country, I want to study law. I know about justice and
I know how to make my own way. I don’t trust anybody. I know about myself but I
don’t know about the next man. I will further my education and I will become a big
man in this country. Trust me.64
Similarly, many former commanders believed that when they won the
election they would finally re-establish themselves as big and powerful men
in the country.
Political agendas
In Sierra Leone, politics constitutes a central focus for marginalized
youths. But, in spite of dedicating their lives to the political campaigning,
most ex-combatants listed ideological and political opinions as the least significant factor behind their mobilization. As will be explained in more depth
below, joining up with a certain presidential candidate did not necessarily
imply loyalty to that candidate. However, important exceptions were to be
found, particularly among APC and People’s Movement for Democratic
Change (PMDC) supporters, many of whom spoke of a deeply felt need for
political change in Sierra Leone.65 Many APC supporters stated that they
loved Ernest Koroma and that they trusted him to bring about meaningful
change – especially for marginalized youths. One special ‘security’ to Ernest
Koroma explained:
63. Interview, central Freetown, 27 August 2007.
64. Interview, central Freetown, 17 August 2007.
65. This might be different in districts where SLPP have strongholds.
530
AFRICAN AFFAIRS
I love Ernest deep in my heart because he wants to change this country in a positive
way. He will bring development. I grew love for him when I stayed in prison. APC is
my party. I don’t care about money, I don’t care about expensive cars, but I care for
the masses of Sierra Leone. The people of this nation need change. That is why I am
with Ernest. It is time to change the political system.66
Though some members of the SLPP task force argued that they loved
Solomon Berewa and that he was worth supporting because ‘he is a man
with discipline’, political convictions were expressed vaguely and ambiguously. When being asked about the political ambitions of SLPP, many supporters just mentioned the slogan ‘one country, one people’ without further
explanation, or explained that SLPP was the winning party and therefore
the best party. Additionally, many SLPP supporters stated that they were
not really interested in politics. As Ibrahim put it:
I know nothing about politics, I really don’t care about politics, it is all the same. You
go vote for PMDC, you go vote for APC, you go vote for SLPP, it is just a game. It
is just like football. The government of today is the government of tomorrow. SLPP is
the winning party, that’s why I support them.67
Watermelon politics
The Sierra Leonean hit song ‘Watermelon Politics’ by the artist Daddy
SAJ was released in early 2007 during election campaigning. Referring
to politics as containing ‘so so water’, like the watermelon, Daddy SAJ
directed attention to the tactical political manoeuvring of Sierra Leonean
youth. Representing the green colour of SLPP on the surface and the red
colour of APC on the inside, the watermelon symbolizes the possibility
of supporting Solomon Berewa while voting for Ernest Koroma (and vice
versa, though this was less common).68 When ‘doing watermelon politics’,
one is able to manoeuvre between various influential politicians and thus
to receive immediate benefits from different sources. Many youth rallying
behind political parties held membership cards for several political parties
and could be seen around the SLPP office on one day and around the APC
office the next. This rather jocular way of challenging the assumption that
presidential candidates could buy votes by means of distributing money and
food was not the only form of watermelon politics.69 Especially among excombatants, watermelon politics took a more serious and at times dangerous
turn, as the following case illustrates.
66. Interview, central Freetown, 13 August 2007.
67. Interview, central Freetown, 24 July 2007.
68. See Utas, ‘Watermelon politics in Sierra Leone’.
69. Here, it must be emphasized that many informants did ‘sell their votes’. Given the
significance of their future prospects, the majority of remobilized combatants did vote for the
presidential candidate to whom they declared loyalty, as they were expecting to be rewarded
after the election.
MERCENARIES OF DEMOCRACY
531
‘I am a real watermelon man,’ stated Samuel, who is not only a former
RUF commander but also a man of influence in the central Freetown prison
(Pademba Road) and amongst ex-prisoners. When the campaigning began,
he was contacted by Ernest Koroma (APC), by Solomon Berewa (SLPP),
and by Charles Margai (PMDC), who all asked him to work as security for
them. However, he rejected their offers:
APC is in my blood and I want Ernest Koroma to win this election but I don’t want to
see myself in a funny situation. I don’t tolerate nonsense. I need my freedom; I need
to schedule my own movements. Watermelon politics makes me rich!70
For Samuel, belonging to one particular party would restrict his sense
of freedom and power. Working for a specific politician, he would have to
surrender to rules and working conditions that he didn’t accept – as he
stated: ‘I will never lose command. I don’t want to live that animal life like
those boys [the ones working in the SLPP and APC task force]. I don’t want
to say “Sir!” again.’ All the same, rather than avoiding the political scene,
Samuel agreed with other ex-combatants that the election was the time to
benefit from the politicians:
I need my benefit and I am taking it now, with my own methods. I have my formula.
Where there is money, you will see me. Where there is power, you will see me. Nobody
can fool me when I make my own patrol. I have my own agendas and nobody can stop
me. I will fool the politicians, big time.71
To ensure that he benefited, Samuel would approach different politicians
and political parties. Samuel would usually begin his ‘patrol’ by going to one
of the Freetown ghetto areas notorious as ‘hang-outs’ for marginalized, unemployed youth. Here, he would meet up with his brother Patrick, another
former RUF combatant, who would help him collect a dozen ‘troublesome
boys’ to stand behind him on the ‘politician patrol’. Patrick explained:
We play our tricks together, go to this side and then to this side. To see my face is
not easy. We will go and dominate them [the politicians]. The boys standing behind
us will not speak. I will pass command. But as for me, I will speak very loud, in that
aggressive way. So they will say, oh, this is ex-combatants. They will fear. And if they
don’t give us the money we will make remarks.72
When asked what kind of remarks they made in order to get money from
the politicians, Patrick replied:
We will say: you have to be careful; we are fighters, if anything goes wrong we will fight
you. We will take your head off. We will kill you; these types of remarks. And like:
At any time we see you with your car at night we will attack you. So some of them,
they fear. So they will pull the money and give us. The last time we went to the APC
candidate [Osho Williams], more than 15 guys, all very fit, the way they see us, people
70. Interview, central Freetown, 28 July 2007.
71. Ibid.
72. Interview, central Freetown, 2 August 2007.
532
AFRICAN AFFAIRS
fear. When people see our faces, they even fear to watch our eyes. We are wild rebels.
The way they see us, we don’t dress up to date. We look like somebody who doesn’t
care about nobody, somebody who is ready to fight. The politicians in this country,
for a very long time they promised us many things, but up until now. . . [nothing]. But
we have skills to deal with the politicians, we have contacts, we implement our own
style. Even the last time we went to NDA,73 we disguised and made use of our skills.
They fear and give us money. It is part of the watermelon politics, we move in disguise
and you know we have skills to disguise.74
‘Watermelon politics’ implies a highly tactical (ab)use of politicians by
ex-combatants to meet their own needs. Many ex-combatants felt that the
politicians ‘use us, abuse, and then refuse us’, and so they decided to employ
their own methods, their own ‘politricks’, in what they termed ‘the political
game’. While some would simply go from door to door to collect money by
scaring politicians, others would rally behind various politicians and pretend
to support them. With either approach, staged ‘madness’ and violent threats
were often used to instil fear in politicians – a tactic that had been employed
by militia groups during the war to scare the enemy.75
Though this ‘hard-core’ watermelon politics was more commonly adopted by low-ranking ex-combatants in the urban ghettos, many high-ranking
ex-combatants who ended up working in the APC or SLPP task forces were
initially involved in the same ‘game’. The reasons that former combatants
gave for switching allegiances to other, and stronger, political parties were
generally not political rationales but related rather to financial benefits and
security. When the run-off was officially announced and SLPP did not get
the anticipated support, many SLPP supporters also started to consider
switching over to APC. However, this change was not feasible for those
who were well-known figures in the SLPP campaign. As the election process intensified, both task forces worked with intelligence officers, called
‘recce soldiers’, to detect spies from the opposing party and to trace the
‘watermelon men’. Most of those caught manoeuvring between various parties were harshly punished: several people accused of belonging to another
party were seriously beaten up and forbidden to enter the space around the
party offices. At least one was killed.
Citizenship, rights and violent encounters
The violent encounters that marked the 2007 election not only targeted
spies and those engaged in watermelon politics but were also manifested
in a series of serious clashes between APC and SLPP supporters and, in
particular, between former rival militia factions. One incident fuelling the
73. The National Democratic Alliance Party.
74. Interview, central Freetown, 2 August 2007.
75. Utas and Jörgel, ‘The West Side Boys’.
MERCENARIES OF DEMOCRACY
533
violence was an assassination attempt against Ernest Koroma on 23 July in
Bo.76 According to Ernest Koroma’s personal ‘securities’ who were present,
an armed group of West Side Boys led by Tom Nyuma (a participant in
the 1992 coup that ousted the APC but also the former boss of one of
Ernest Koroma’s personal securities) attempted to enter Ernest Koroma’s
hotel room and to kill him and his ‘securities’, including Leatherboot.77
However, members of the SLPP task force who were there argued instead
that Tom Nyuma was attacked by Ernest Koroma’s personal securities in
an effort to cause chaos ahead of the election. According to two of Tom
Nyuma’s securities, who were admitted to hospital with severe injuries after
the incident, their former RUF rivals led by Leatherboot had stripped them
naked and tortured them severely before attacking Tom Nyuma. The arrest of Leatherboot and his companions and the rumour that Tom Nyuma
was unconscious in hospital added to the tension. Though the graphic and
extremely detailed descriptions by Ernest Koroma’s securities varied significantly from those of Tom Nyuma’s securities, both parties agreed that the
incident was caused by old, unresolved grudges dating back to the war and
to prison life.
Following the incident, several violent clashes between the APC and
SLPP were reported, party offices in the provinces were burned down,
and the President announced that he would declare a state of emergency
if the violent acts did not stop immediately. Among task force members
this announcement was (perhaps correctly) interpreted as merely a threat,
and the most serious violence then erupted in the centre of Freetown on
1 September. Remobilized combatants from SLPP and APC armed with
sticks, knives, and cutlasses clashed in the street close to the SLPP office at
the old government wharf and in the central streets. The fighting continued
for several hours and various ‘security squads’ came running from different
locations in the city to join the fight. Shops were quickly closed to avoid
looting and the streets were dominated by chaotic turmoil as people tried to
escape the task forces. The police called for reinforcements and intervened
with teargas and warning shots, which had the effect of exacerbating the
fighting. Dozens of people from both task forces were severely injured. The
previous month’s ‘ex-combatants’ peace march’ and the SLPP supporters’
‘say no to violence’ slogan now seemed rather ironic. ‘Only the real junglers
[fighters] will survive in Freetown today,’78 an APC task force member
announced.
These violent encounters not only fuelled the conflict between the opposing factions but also came to be closely intertwined with notions of rights
76. The second biggest city in the country.
77. See also ‘Statement issued by the All People’s Congress of Sierra Leone’, Awareness Times
[Freetown], 24 July 2007.
78. Interview, central Freetown, 1 September 2008.
534
AFRICAN AFFAIRS
and citizenship. During the 2007 elections, remobilized ex-combatants passionately debated and negotiated what is implied by the above concepts.
Here, debates over citizenship were generally related to the right to belong
to a political party without being discriminated against and, with that, the
right to vote. As SLPP task force member, Ali, explained:
I have my identity – I am a citizen of this nation, and it is my right to express my
opinion. It is my right to belong to SLPP without being harassed by these APC thugs
and rarray boys, and it is my right to vote for SLPP. When you are a citizen of the
nation, nobody can stand in your way. You have the freedom and the protection. It is
your responsibility to protect yourself and it is your obligation. I have the right to do
whatever I want. I always walk with a long knife after dark. . . .79
In this way, perceptions of rights and citizenship were intertwined with
the discourse of violence. Ali was one of the former West Side Boys who was
attacked during the Bo incident, after which he feared that his RUF rivals
would ‘set up an ambush’ to kill him. Consequently, he did not move without
his ‘squad’ and would always carry a knife with him. His statement reflects
a common interpretation of citizenship and rights among ex-combatants.
Many stressed that, as registered members of a political party, they had the
mandate ‘to do whatever they want’ in order to secure their social and legal
rights.
Violent notions of citizenship were embedded not only in discourses but
also in practice. During the 8 September presidential election (the second
round), for instance, ex-combatants mobilized themselves in order to ‘secure
their votes’. Arguing that it was their responsibility as citizens to make sure
that the people of Sierra Leone could cast their votes for their favourite
candidate, they drove around the polling stations, armed with weapons. A
member of the SLPP task force commented on the incident:
Last time [during the first voting] we made the mistake to leave the polling stations
when we finished to vote. But this time we have secured our votes. It is our responsibility
to make sure everybody can exercise their rights. If we stay back, people will fear to
vote, so we are just doing what we have to do. It is not really true, all this talk about
how we make APC supporters stay in their houses, and it is not really important that
we take up our arms. It is part of the show. Without arms we don’t have rights. We
are citizens of this nation and we are just doing our jobs. We secure the votes by
force.80
On other occasions, similar rationales were articulated by task force members arguing that as citizens of Sierra Leone it was their right to influence
the election results – not only by casting their own votes but also by ‘sensitizing’ other people to vote for a certain candidate. Here, the campaigning
went far beyond ‘ordinary sensitization’ and participation in rallies to using
79. Interview, central Freetown, 17 August 2007.
80. Interview, central Freetown, 7 September 2007.
MERCENARIES OF DEMOCRACY
535
violence to force people to vote for certain candidates. An APC task force
member explained:
You know, we have to make people understand how to vote. We have so many illiterates,
they know nothing about politics and they don’t know their rights. Their understanding
is slow. That’s why we tell them how to vote. . . it is like sensitization. If we don’t do it
by force they will never understand. I am fed up with violence but for now, I am left
with no choice. If they don’t vote for APC, they will have no rights in the end. They
will continue to be second-class citizens.81
Thus, violence was legitimized as an element of campaigning. This was
not only true for task force members but also among politicians. An SLPP
supporter explained how he was encouraged to fight the APC supporters:
It was Solo B who gave the order. He paid me 300,000 Leones to fight the APC. He
even gave me a mobile phone and my own bank account. It is like, I fight them because
they don’t really know who to vote for. Sometimes, it just takes abusive language and
threatening remarks to let them understand that SLPP is the ruling party. It is my
right to express myself. I am a member of this nation like everybody else.82
As these statements show, ex-combatants involved in the campaigning
articulated their responsibilities and rights through discourses of citizenship to legitimize the use of violent means. However, though stressing that
citizenship entails certain rights and responsibilities, on other occasions
ex-combatants depicted themselves as ‘second-class citizens’. As one put it:
Do you ask me about citizenship? It is not for the sufferers, I tell you for free! We are
second-class citizens of this nation. We have no rights here, no nothing. Nobody ever
told me about citizenship! We are just like slaves in this nation, or foreigners – abused
by the politicians. After the election nobody will talk about citizenship and all that
again. It is just words. We are nobody in this nation.83
Others pointed to the electoral process as ‘the only time to have rights’
and as ‘the only time to let their voices be heard’. It can be argued, then, that
discourses of citizenship and rights were used as tactics by ex-combatants
as part of the process of campaigning.
Contesting democracy
When examining political mobilization, and the intense and deeply emotional political engagement of ex-combatants, it is perhaps surprising to
discover that perceptions of politics were grounded in a profound sense of
distrust. Though many ex-combatants initially argued that they were loyal to
the political candidates they rallied behind, it did not take much discussion
before mixed feelings were revealed. Ex-combatants continually referred to
81. Interview, central Freetown, 30 August 2007.
82. Interview, central Freetown, 1 September 2007.
83. Interview, central Freetown, 11 August 2007.
536
AFRICAN AFFAIRS
the politicians as ‘educated fools’ and as ‘hypocrites and wicked men’.84
Blaming the politicians for the suffering of marginalized youth, Patrick (like
his brother Samuel a ‘watermelon man’) explained:
The politicians in this country, they are hypocrites. Trust me. SLPP, APC, PMDC:
I don’t trust any of them. They will come for now, they will talk to you fine, but in
the end, when they get the power, they will never encourage you. Unless you have
strong influence. They are all saying, when we rule we will have light, we will have job
facilities, we will have dwelling place, they will make bridge from here to Lungi.85 All
these promises. Last time, before Kabbah sat down [came to power], I worked with
them as bodyguard – from place to place. But when he got power, he pushed me away.
Just giving me small money. Like to pay transport. If you depend on these politicians,
you will be a drop-out, you will never be able to do anything better in your life, because
the promises they give to you, it is lies.86
Though Patrick did not support a particular candidate, his perception
of politicians and politics is representative of the view of a great many excombatants. Rather than blindly trusting the promises of presidential candidates, remobilized ex-combatants argued that politicians would continue
to fail them – as had happened during the war and again when the peace
was declared. When discussing politics as related to democracy, a common
statement was: ‘This is black man politics’, indicating the persistent lack
of trust in either the Sierra Leonean political leadership or the democratic
process, and therefore a lack of trust in a free and fair democratic election. Here, many asked, rhetorically: ‘We don’t trust ourselves, so how are
we supposed to trust in democracy?’ whilst others argued that ‘this is not
election – it is selection’.
A post-election perspective
When the final election results were still pending, suggesting a very close
race between Ernest Koroma and Solomon Berewa, notions of democracy
and citizenship did not take up much space in the minds of remobilized
combatants. Rather, they were concerned about their future lives. Would
promises given by politicians be fulfilled? What would happen if their chosen
candidate did not win the election? Would grudges between former militia
factions evolve into renewed conflict or would peace be upheld? Addressing
the sense of insecurity prior to the final results, Ali said:
84. Such sentiments have been emphasized in Sierra Leonean popular music, in many ways
the most reliable medium of expression in the country.
85. Lungi is the town where the international airport is situated. To get there currently
necessitates a ferry or helicopter ride across the Sierra Leone River mouth. A bridge is a
long-standing and unfulfilled political promise that has been turned into a symbol of political
neglect of the ordinary Sierra Leonean.
86. Interview, central Freetown, 2 August 2007.
MERCENARIES OF DEMOCRACY
537
We are waiting for the results now and we all fear. We joined these wicked politicians
to get influence and to get security but look at us now. I am not free to walk in the city,
and I fear unless I walk with my squad and my arms. It is like we are trapped in the
war again. With no security. It is that jungle behaviour we see in the streets now, so
we just have to try our best to get what we want. I care for myself only and I am ready
for anything. That is my slogan. I am ready for peace, I am ready for war. I don’t trust
anybody and I don’t care about anybody. Now, I want my benefit. Even if I will get it
by force, I will get it.87
In Freetown, dominated by APC supporters, the streets burst into an
overwhelming celebration when the election results were released, with people singing and dancing in the streets. For SLPP supporters, however, the
announcement came as a shock, quickly followed by fear. Crowds of celebrating people ran towards the SLPP office and began to attack task force
members and to loot from the office. The police intervened with teargas, and
in the chaos and panic the SLPP task force members managed to escape.
Whilst some fled on boats from the waterfront behind the SLPP office, others donned red T-shirts to blend into the crowd of APC supporters. Many
were hiding nearby when the results came out and stayed indoors until the
celebration finished.
Winners, losers and shape shifters
One year after the elections, the transformation in political constellations has brought about a radical change in the position of remobilized
ex-combatants. Former SLPP task force members have once again been
positioned as ‘losers’ and forced to leave the centre of politics without gaining any significant benefit. For those on the losing side, promises were never
fulfilled and the dream of future prospects that incited the violent mobilization has been shattered. While some have managed to find alternative ways
to survive in Freetown, linking up with diamond dealers or just hustling in
the streets, the majority of former SLPP task force members have travelled
to the provinces and to neighbouring countries where they have been absorbed into new political and militia constellations. Some have remained
loyal to Tom Nyuma and continued to work for him as task force members
for the 2008 local elections where he became a SLPP candidate for the
chairmanship of Kailahun District.
Among APC task force members, the political mobilization is regarded
as a success – especially among the high-ranking commanders who are
presently experiencing the benefits of their employment. Though some former SLPP supporters have shifted shape, or peeled the watermelon, and
replaced their green SLPP shirts with red and declared their full support
87. Interview, central Freetown, 10 September 2007.
538
AFRICAN AFFAIRS
for Ernest Bai Koroma in order to get accepted among the ‘winners’, it is
mostly those task force members who stayed loyal to Koroma during the
whole electoral process who have benefited significantly. Besides receiving a
large sum of money when the election result was announced,88 many highranking task force members received private cars and new residences. Some
are buying land and others are establishing themselves within the mining
sector. Most startling, however, is the present process of mobilizing APC
task force members into the armed wing of the Sierra Leone police force.
At the beginning of January 2008, Leatherboot and others of Ernest
Koroma’s personal securities were sent to Casablanca for special training in
close protection. After three months of training, they are being employed
in the Sierra Leone police force to serve in the Presidential Guard Police
Unit. The promotion of Leatherboot to head of the protection unit has
caused great public concern and condemnation, but in statements to the
media Leatherboot describes the mobilization of former high-ranking RUF
combatants into the police force as a process of ‘desired rehabilitation’ and
‘reintegration into society’.89 In appealing to the public, Leatherboot states
that, contrary to the negative images of him and his colleagues, they are not
‘ruthless killers’ but ‘patriotic peaceful citizens’ providing security for the
country.90
Politics as the domestication of violence
‘Pre-war political violence was the training ground for warfare’ states
Rosen.91 In this article, we have shown how strategies, tactics and networks of power learned and created during the civil war, not least by excombatants, were re-animated and exploited during the 2007 elections. By
focusing on processes of violent mobilization in a post-war election, we are
able to establish a clear continuity in the political use of violence in pre-war,
war and post-war Sierra Leone. ‘Wartime is not so different from political
time,’ Mbembe argues.92 The war-time intensification of combat and violence, and the extensive mobilization of youth into militia movements, are
often defined as ‘exceptional’. However, as we have demonstrated above,
boundaries between peace and war are blurred by the ‘politricks’ of remobilized combatants. Though task force members rallying behind the political parties employed discourses of citizenship to render violence legitimate,
88. Several sources (including both PMDC task force members and low-ranking APC members) have argued that Leatherboot received US $45,000 to distribute between himself and his
task force. This, however, has not been confirmed by Leatherboot and might be exaggerated.
89. Awareness Times [Freetown], 18 January 2008.
90. Concord Times [Freetown], 19 March 2008.
91. Rosen, Armies of the Young, p. 79.
92. Mbembe, ‘On politics as a form of expenditure’, p. 300.
MERCENARIES OF DEMOCRACY
539
they continuously compared war-time dynamics with the electoral moment.
Presidential candidates gave assurances that they would never incite violence as part of political campaigning, but violent mobilization, albeit in a
more subtle and invisible form, did once more characterize and influence
‘the “normal” operations of democratic politics’.93 As Mbembe points out,
‘electoral moments’ are hardly devoid of conflict but violence is sublimated
by means of election.94 This sublimation of violence does not necessarily
imply that conflict does not take public form; on the contrary, it involves
a process of domesticating violence which in turn serves to make violence
legitimate.95 We need to bear this in mind when we consider mercenaries
of democracy in Sierra Leone and elsewhere on the African continent.
93. Mariane Ferme, ‘The violence of numbers: consensus, competition, and the negotiation
of disputes in Sierra Leone’, Cahiers d’Études Africaines, 150–152, 2–4 (1998), pp. 555–80.
94. Mbembe, ‘On politics as a form of expenditure’, p. 312.
95. Ibid., p. 313. And it is this process of domesticating violence which is consolidated in the
current mobilization of ex-combatants into the police force.